Witches

O presente artigo convida a uma reflexão a respeito do fenômeno da caça às bruxas na Europa Ocidental, dos processos histórico-sociais de deslegitimização da figura feminina e posterior cristalização desta personagem nos contos maravilhosos e folclóricos portugueses. Partindo de uma abordagem notadamente histórica, propõe-se aqui uma análise da cruel política religiosa que fundamentou um dos episódios mais sangrentos da história da humanidade, dizimando cerca de cem mil mulheres ao longo de duas décadas. Finalmente, são expostos comentários acerca da figura estereotipada da bruxa e de seu aprisionamento nas páginas de livros infantis a partir do século XVIII.

When I tell friends and family that I make art about witches, no one seems surprised. As a child, I was obsessed with fantasy and magic, going out into the woods behind my house to look for evidence of unicorns, fairies, and dragons. I\\u27m reasonably sure I never found any, but that love has stayed with me to this day and is the most significant influence in my art. A second, but no less significant influence on my art is my fascination with history. My grandfather is a huge fan of the History Channel, and would frequently watch it in the evenings when I was young. I would sit with him and learn about the rise and fall of the Roman Empire; about the struggles of Boudicca and the Iceni people of the British Isles; about Ghengis Khan and Alexander the Great; and about the Malleus Maleficarum, and the 50,000 people burned to death because of it. As a young teenager, I dipped my toes into both the textile and digital arts. Digital, because I couldn’t not experiment with it, having grow...

Barbara Szymczak-Maciejczyk’s chapter The Witches, ghosts, and specters: The New Orleans House at the First Street delves into the haunted house described in The Witching Hour by Anne Rice. The house is haunted by Lasher, a half-demon, halfghost, and the souls of the dead members of the Mayfair family. The author contends that it is the family’s history that has considerable influence on the perception of the
house (both its exterior and interior). Every witch has left an indelible mark of her own personality and power, affecting the entire Mayfair family in each generation.
Personal family belongings accumulated in the house draw flashbacks of the past, family legends and extended historical narratives of the Mayfair family by strangers, enabling a post-memory discourse. Most of the novel characters dream of renovating the residence. The house on First Street is renovated—symbolizing an exorcism. Many references to Christianity and demonology occur in The Witching Hour exemplified
by the appearance of figures of saints, visits to church, setting of altars in the rooms of the witches, devotional articles and the theme of confessions breaking the power of the Mayfair house. The novel delves deeper into the occult by providing descriptions of the Candomblé religion and voodoo rituals. Attention was also drawn to Lasher,
whose origin and nature are not thoroughly explained. However, he has a tremendous impact on many aspects of the family’s life. Lasher’s powers allow the reader to infer that haunting is not related to a specific location (as evidenced by even the lack of obstacles to the emergence of Lasher in different places of the world), but rather, with certain persons. Interesting is Lasher’s connection with an emerald necklace, inherited
by successive generations of witches. For the Mayfair family, it is a sigil signifying that of the women were chosen as a beneficiary of the “great heritage”. In spite of the many failed attempts to expel spirits, Lasher makes the New Orleans House on First Street the focal point of their visitations.

A particularly fertile period for satanic presence can be found in mainstream Hollywood during the early to mid 1970s. Encouraged by the success of Rosemary’s Baby, major studios produced The Exorcist and The Omen series, not to mention a flurry of independent productions across the decade. Neither before nor since this decade has satanic content in cinema achieved such widespread popularity, and so this particular moment ought to warrant deeper consideration. In general, these narratives appealed to countercultural notions of conspiracy, especially with respect to authority figures and/or the government. But at an even more subconscious level, these satanic films spoke to a pervading fear, at this particular time, of relinquishing a former sense of control over one’s destiny. This article explores and elucidates the cultural conditions attributable for the emergence and popular embrace of these films in this particularly modernist cultural moment.

A particularly fertile period for satanic presence can be found in mainstream Hollywood during the early to mid 1970s. Encouraged by the success of Rosemary’s Baby, major studios produced The Exorcist and The Omen series, not to mention a flurry of independent productions across the decade. Neither before nor since this decade has satanic content in cinema achieved such widespread popularity, and so this particular moment ought to warrant deeper consideration. In general, these narratives appealed to countercultural notions of conspiracy, especially with respect to authority figures and/or the government. But at an even more subconscious level, these satanic films spoke to a pervading fear, at this particular time, of relinquishing a former sense of control over one’s destiny. This article explores and elucidates the cultural conditions attributable for the emergence and popular embrace of these films in this particularly modernist cultural moment.

The Underworld of Lublin in Old Polish Acta Maleficorum (Abstract in English)

Written from the 15th century the so-called Acta Maleficorum are a valuable source of knowledge of malefactions in Old Poland. They give information about urban courts and the ways the system of justice used to deal with crimes. Moreover, they reveal multiple aspects of social life, making it possible to learn about former people and their mentality, attitudes and the world view.
The protocols drawn up by the city court of Lublin from the 16th to the 18th century include mainly the texts of accusations, testimonies of witnesses and of the accused (often written during or after tortures), sentences and sometimes their execution.
Defendants represent assorted groups of the prepartitioned Polish society – from the top of the social ladder (the gentry) to its grounds (peasants and social outcasts). The trial protocols contain almost all well-known categories of crimes: robbery, theft, murder, extortion, forgery, kidnapping or even witchcraft and sodomy.
Despite the limitations of this category of sources, further analysis of Acta Maleficorum may answer many other questions, for instance, about everyday life and family bonds, and help to explain these issues in greater detail.

Projet de thèse :
CONSTRUIRE LA FIGURE DE LA SORCIÈRE EN FRANCE À LA FIN DU MOYEN ÂGE (XIVe-XVe siècles)
Justice, représentations, circulations des savoirs et des imaginaires

Par Maxime Gelly-Perbellini
École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris
Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Bruxelles

Direction de thèse :
Alain Dierkens (ULB)
Marie Anne Polo de Beaulieu (EHESS / CNRS)
Alexis Wilkin (ULB)

Across early modern Europe, countless people were charged as witches, often subject to brutal torture and gruesome deaths. Within this, most witches were female, only in select areas, such as Russia, did male witches outnumber female witches. This is as witchcraft was a gendered crime. The theological construction of witchcraft pointed to the female sex as the weaker gender. Eve being the first woman to be tempted by the Devil served as a precedent for female weakness. On a local level, the anxieties surrounding childbirth created heightened tensions leading to women accusing other women of witchcraft. This was exacerbated by the economic distress caused by the Little Ice Age resulting in an increase in both child malnutrition and crop damage. This gave room for natural misfortunes to be pinned on witchcraft, magic that could only be enacted by a female witch. The trial of Walpurga Hausmännin provides a perfect example of how these elements of early modern society contributed to the way in which gender played a role in the persecution of witches.

Весняний цикл календарної обрядовості насичений
iзвичаями й віруваннями, які мають характер
традицій з багатовіковою історією побутування. Одним із
найшановніших свят пізньовесняного періоду є свято Юрія.
На Покутті до початку ХХІ ст. побутувало ще багато традицій
відзначення цього дня, проте з кожним роком все менше
покутян їх дотримуються. Тому важливо не тільки встигнути
зафіксувати, але й проаналізувати зібраний етнографічний
матеріал. Метою статті є виокремити характерні традиції
відзначення цього дня та вірування на Покутті, проаналізувати
походження окремих ритуалів та простежити зміни на основі
порівняльного матеріалу XIX – початку XXI ст.

ABSTRACT
The Jacobean era's infamous witchcraft trials are recalled after reservoir repairs close to Pendle Hill reveal a buried cottage with bricked‐up cat. Interpretations of the building as the site of Malkin Tower, recorded in court records as the venue of a witches coven are critically evaluated in the light of archaeological and historical evidence.

KEYWORDS
WITCH, PENDLE WITCH TRIALS, PENDLE HILL, MALKIN TOWER, FOLK BELIEF, MAGIC, LANCASTER ASSIZES, WISE WOMEN, CUNNING FOLK, ARCHAEOLOGY, HISTORY, SEVENTEENTHCENTURY, ALIZON DEVICE, SALEM WITCHES, THOMAS POTTS, LOWER BLACK MOSS, ELIZABETH SOUTHERNS, DEMDIKE, ELIZABETH DEVICE, JAMES DEVICE, ANNE WHITTLE, CHATTOX, ANNE REDFERNE, JANE BULCOCK, JOHN BULCOCK, ALICE NUTTER, KATHERINE HEWITT, ALICE GRAY, JENNET PRESTON, GUNPOWDER PLOT, CAT

Unbecoming Female Monsters: Witches, Vampires and Virgins is a multi-cultural and interdisciplinary work founded on the idea that female monstrosity is buried within cultural constructs. It looks at the cult of the female body as a contested site of patriarchal fears and anxieties around female sexuality and its reproductive power. Cristina Santos explores how any process of female sexual development occurring outside society’s predetermined acceptable behavior patterns for women is considered deviant, monstrous, and/or degenerate. This type of socio-cultural censorship of female self-expression then leads to the prejudgment of the female by external forces within confining and inauthentic roles for the individual. Ultimately, those women who chose an authentic self-expression of their sexuality run the risk of possible exclusion from their community and punishment for not adhering to the dominant normative code.

Pagan beliefs and practices in 19th century Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Hungary, Wisewomen, healers, and seers. Culture loss under repression and displacement from the land. Festival enactments of "Burning the Witch." Rites of witch-detection. Demonization and stubborn retention of pagan elements. Book draft from Vol XIII of Secret History of the Witches.

Many Shakespeare scholars have attempted to discern an intentional religious message in The Comedy of Errors, a play which has many implied or direct allusions to both paganism and Christianity.

Using allegory, Shakespeare portrays the moment in history when Christianity developed and also depicts paganism from a historical perspective. He ties religious history to material and political concerns and sees religion as a calculated political strategy. However, because the material world is not cared for under the dominant regime of monotheism, the material world would eventually go into an environmental crisis and Shakespeare predicts that this will force people to make the material world a spiritual concern again (i.e. "turn witch").

The subject of the article was a comparative analysis of the Icelandic völva and the witch in former Poland. Information contained in Iceland sagas and Polish folk tales have proved the relationship between witches and nature. The image, accessories and magic practices of both witches were consistent with the above hypothesis. Nature as a space was a unique area from which witches could draw their power and obtain ingredients for magical treatments. Therefore, from environmental criticism point of view, witches are characters that use the nature to influence human life. Belief in witches made them intermediaries in man's relationship with the surrounding landscape.

Meanings of witch-words in European languages. Prophetic witches, knowers, wisewomen, diviners. Sortiaria, sortilega, and sorceress. Staff- women: the völur. Chant, invocation, charms. Healing witches: lyb, luppa, and lybbestre; herbalists, herb-chants, the wyrtgælstre. Mugwort and the serpent-initiation of Chernobyl. Shapeshifters and mascae. Wolf-witches in Ireland and Scandinavia. Night-farers. From hagedisse to hexe.
A litany of ethnic witch-names.
Chapter III from Witches and Pagans: Women in European Folk Religion, 700-1100, Veleda Press. ISBN: 9780692740286
Excerpt includes a table of contents for the book

This is the Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics online on 17 January 2019 and in print in May 2020, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21504857.2019.1566155.

Through a gendered close reading, using classical reception studies as a springboard, this article discusses the reception and moe-ification of the female witch, warrior, and monster figures from classical mythology in Japanese seinen and shōnen manga at the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It focuses on Flora and Schierke in Berserk (1990–); the Gorgon sisters in One Piece (1997–) and in Soul Eater (2004–2013); and Medusa in Witchcraft Works (2010–), all of whom are named and/or fashioned after Circe, the Amazons, the Gorgons, and Arachne. It points out to the intertextuality between these worldwide popular turn-of-the-century Japanese manga and classical mythology narratives. It discusses the moe-ification of these classical subversive monstrous female figures, formerly demonised and marginalised by the patriarchal discourse. It analyses how their reception in manga contributes to canonising the monstrous female. It illustrates how that offers the female readers of seinen and shōnen manga new ways of expressing and interpreting gender that liberate and restructure the female’s relationship to power.

Witches’ Sabbath offers an overload of the emblematic characteristics which were attributed to witches during the early modern period, underpinned by the complete nudity of the witches. Naked witches were not often depicted in the illustrations of respectable, cautionary literary works concerning witches, hence this artistic choice on Baldung's part is a rather innovatory. Interestingly only a year after the unveiling of Witches' Sabbath in 1510, Die Emeis - which preocuppied itself with the Lenten sermons of Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg - was published in Strasbourg similarly depicting naked witches. Although we cannot say whether the inclusion of naked witches in Die Emeis was solely the result of Baldung’s depiction, it is very likely that Geiler would have been familiar with Baldung's work due to its popularity and this woodcut could have indeed influenced his own opinions and artistic choices. Whether Baldung intended his woodcut to not only reflect a “real-life” representation of witches but, more importantly, influence how they would be depicted by their persecutors in the future is debatable. Much of the debate surrounding this piece centres on this point: was it Baldung's intention to realistically depict witches or should Baldung’s work be viewed as satirical. Either way, there is much that this woodcut can tell us about what those who genuinely believed in the existence of witches and the way fear of witchcraft was constructed for public consumption.

This class focuses on belief systems from around the world and throughout time, centering on the categories religion, witchcraft, and magic. We will examine a wide swath of topics, including mythology, ritual practices, death and afterlives, healing and medicine, monsters and miracles, and the occult. We will discuss how belief systems emerge and respond to political systems, including how belief systems can be used as tools of disempowerment and oppression. Students must be prepared to look at both literate and non-literate societies, as we engage in cross-cultural analyses of belief systems.

Even though witchcraft may not be scientifically justified, it is a widely believed reality in Africa and among Africans. In Nigerian dialectical parlance for example, witchcraft is recognized and called Aje among the Yoruba, Ifot among the Ibibio, Amusus among the Igbo, and Pou among the Ijaw. Hence, every average African within Africa, most especially, acknowledges the existence and actuality of witchcraft. However despite this acknowledgement, some lack the knowledge of the fact that witchcraft is a two-way street-a help and a hurt in Africa. Consequently, this study employs secondary date to unveil the havocs the phenomenon has caused in various African societies as well as the good it has brought to few Africans. But before justice would be done to this, the study would have to first consider the meaning of witchcraft and witches, evidences of witchcraft in the holy Bible, and accusations of witchcraft against children.

Billed as a horror film, Robert Eggers 2015 cult classic "The Witch" offered so much more than the usual fare of Hollywood supernatural thrillers.  For one thing, it's a pretty authentic feeling period drama, set in New England during the mid 17th Century, which draws the viewer straight into a bleak vision of puritanical settlers from England, fighting to maintain their piety in a wild, untamed new land.

In this analysis I would like to look at the films major theme of subversion of the traditional order in a tale that simultaneously presents the themes of individualised liberation and the dangers of straying from established hierarchy. The films young woman protagonist is preyed upon in a relentless process of targeted indoctrination and systemic sabotage to change her will, and ultimately betray her principles as taught by her family and faith. ...

http://www.whenthenewsstops.org/2016/08/the-witch-cult-tale-of-targeted.html

Paper done for my senior History Seminar class at Indiana University Southeast in Spring 2014.  Theme of the paper was history and memory; basically says to describe a certain historical event and how it is remembered.  My main focus was the early modern European witch trials and witches how they were depicted in art and popular culture and they survived into modern times.  My main point was that female witches were presented in three archetypes in early modern art: the hag, the seductress, and the inverted woman.  I showed this through the various paintings and how said paintings reflected descriptions from the Malleus Maleficarum (The Witches' Hammer) and the Compendium Maleficarum and how they survived into modern popular culture.

Please note that this was an undergraduate project. Both my writing style and research methods were very basic at the time.

Se realiza un breve recorrido por las aproximaciones teóricas más importantes sobre los per-sonajes que aparecen en el cuento maravilloso y cómo han ido evolucionando y cambiando a lo largo de la historia de la Literatura. Se inicia esta actualización teórica por Vladimir Propp para acabar con estudios más actuales, incluidos los que se centran en la Literatura Infantil y Juvenil, que se han de-dicado a analizar los cambios realizados en los roles e incluso en las características de los personajes. Después se presentan los tres arquetipos más importantes utilizados en los cuentos maravillosos, con-cretamente las brujas, las princesas y las hadas, marcando la evolución sufrida por estos personajes en cuanto a sus características y la función que realizan, desde los cuentos maravillosos de transmisión oral hasta la utilización en la Literatura Infantil y Juvenil.

We will make a brief theoretical overview of the characters in fairy tales and how they have evolved and changed throughout the history of literature. This theoretical updating initiates with Vladimir Propp and ends with more current studies, including those ones focusing on Children and Young Adults Literature, which have analysed the changes in the character's roles and even their characteristics. Then, the three most important archetypes used in wonderful tales-witches, princesses and fairies in particular-will be introduced. The development of characters' features and function will be explained, from oral fairy tales to Children and Young Adult Literature. 1. El personaje en el cuento maravilloso El formalista ruso Vladimir Propp, siguiendo un enfoque metodológico estructuralista, fue el primer estudioso en analizar en profundidad los cuentos maravillosos de la transmisión oral rusa. Sus estudios sentaron las bases e incidieron profundamente en los análisis posteriores sobre este tipo de cuentos que hasta entonces no habían tenido un estudio específico, sino que se habían analizado con-juntamente con las demás manifestaciones narrativas de la transmisión oral. Sus teorías no se cono-cieron en Occidente y Estados Unidos hasta mediados del siglo XX cuando en 1958 se tradujo al inglés

MONTANER, Alberto, y TAUSIET, María, «“Ojos ayrados”: Poética y retórica de la brujería», en Señales, Portentos y Demonios: La magia en la literatura y la cultura españolas del Renacimiento, Salamanca, Sociedad de Estudios Medievales y Renacentistas, 2014 [ISBN 978-84-941708-2-9], pp. 277-350.

Hablar del Libro de San Cipriano es hablar de uno de esos textos míticos cuya presencia se hace efectiva en muchas obras de estudiosos de las ciencias ocultas. Es uno de los conocidos grimorios o libros prohibidos que fueron fruto del interés de muchos lectores a lo largo de la historia. En él, el moje alemán Jonás Sufurino transcribe supuestamente los textos que unos espíritus le han dictado. Dentro de este libro se incluyen texto míticos como La clavícula de Salomón, varia invocaciones, pactos con el demonio, exorcismos, El dragón rojo y la cabra infernal, la gallina negra, la escuela de sortilegios, el gran grimorio y el pacto de sangre, la Candela mágica para descubrir encantamientos, una recopilación de magia caldea y egipcia, filtros, encantamientos, hechicerías y demás sortilegios.La edición está adornada con muchas ilustraciones repartidas a lo largo del texto.

Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous nous intéressons aux représentations de la sorcière dans la littérature d’inspiration historique à partir des années 1970. Nous analysons la construction de cette figure protéiforme et les métamorphoses qu’elle connaît dans l’imaginaire social lors des dernières décennies du XXe siècle. Plus précisément, nous examinons les différentes facettes de la sorcière, telles qu’elles apparaissent dans quatre romans francophones d’inspiration historique, en relation avec les discours historiques, féministes et postcoloniaux, et les autres productions culturelles de la même période. En étudiant les interactions entre les représentations de la sorcière et d’autres œuvres, travaux et tendances de l’époque, notre thèse met en lumière les problématiques abordées à travers cette figure dans les textes littéraires. La figure de la sorcière reprend notamment des enjeux qui marquent les dernières décennies du XXe siècle, tels la place des femmes et des cultures minoritaires dans la société, la représentation du corps féminin, le recul des religions traditionnelles et l’écriture de l’Histoire. Au moyen des approches sociocritique et intertextuelle, nous explorons ces enjeux et analysons la façon dont les œuvres développent ou prolongent ces réflexions en abordant la figure de la sorcière.

De manière à pouvoir tracer l’évolution de la figure et des questions qui lui sont liées, la thèse est divisée en trois parties, représentant chacune une décennie distincte. Après un préambule brossant un tableau de l’imaginaire de la sorcière au début des années 1970, une première partie se concentre sur la construction de la figure de la sorcière dans les romans Les Enfants du sabbat d’Anne Hébert et La Fontaine obscure de Raymond Jean, parus lors de la décennie 1970. Une deuxième partie, centrée sur la décennie 1980, se penche sur le roman Moi, Tituba sorcière... de Maryse Condé. Enfin, une troisième partie s’intéresse au roman Instruments des ténèbres de Nancy Huston, publié pendant les années 1990. En combinant différentes approches, cette thèse tend à mieux comprendre la fonction de la sorcière dans la littérature et les idées qui lui sont associées dans l’imaginaire social à partir de 1970.